Movie Idea: Breathe
(Breathe as in paper bag and panic attacks, but also fresh air)
The protagonist can have unspecified maladies, but think agoraphobia and paranoia. They live in an ordinary suburban house – I’m think UK. They think the world is out to get them, but all the viewers see is the ordinary world, nothing scary.
The themes are privacy and permission. The idea that someone can enter your property to deliver mail, despite your wishes. TV detector vans (look it up).
(I have lived this, briefly, long ago. I think I can make it real in a screenplay).
The running out of tinned food, or toilet paper, versus venturing out.
Phone calls and letters requiring you to act. An electricity company requiring you to call and update your bonus plan (or whatever). Spam phone calls, repeatedly.
Family, well-meaning, trying to visit.
All of this is the first act, setting the state of mind, the lack of coping. And then the big one – an eviction or the house being demolished? No, too boring. Something big and small at the same time, like The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind. Yes, maybe something natural… Maybe an End of the World scenario? The power is off, he copes for a few days, then pokes his head outside and realises that everyone has left. And within that he has freedom. Ventures out…Sorry, not he, they.
After avoiding humans their whole life, they venture out and, after hiding safe in a home, confront nature. Dogs, magpies, mosquitoes, floods, heat from the Sun… And finds love and affection from dogs, cats, curious fantails, babbling brooks and swaying branches.
Third act is of course people again, both good and bad. And being part of a group (a little society) to survive. Agoraphobia can be the new Asperger’s.